Lindsey Graham Says He'll Push To Confirm A New Supreme Court Justice
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) made clear on Saturday that he would move to fill Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s seat on the Supreme Court, despite having said in the past that such vacancies should not be confirmed during a presidential election year.
On Saturday, he tweeted that he would support President Donald Trump “in any effort to move forward regarding the recent vacancy created by the passing of Justice Ginsburg.”
Graham, locked in what a recent poll showed is a tough reelection bid, is reversing the stance he took four years ago as Republicans blocked then-President Barack Obama from filling the vacancy created by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia.
“If there’s a Republican president in 2016 and a vacancy occurs in the last year of the first term, you can say Lindsey Graham said let’s let the next president, whoever it might be, make that nomination,” Graham said in March of 2016, eight months before that year’s election ended with Trump winning the White House.
“You could use my words against me and you would be absolutely right,” he added at the time.
LINDSEY GRAHAM on March 10, 2016:
“I want you to use my words against me. If there’s a Republican president in 2016 and a vacancy occurs in the last year of the first term, you can say Lindsey Graham said let’s let the next president, whoever it might be, make that nomination." pic.twitter.com/DYXou0KEI8— JM Rieger (@RiegerReport) September 19, 2020
Graham reiterated that position as late as October 2018: “If an opening comes in the last year of President Trump’s term, and the primary process has started, we’ll wait to the next election.”
But Graham, who as the Judiciary Committee head will be in charge of the confirmation process, started backing away from his previous stance even before Ginsburg’s death. In justifying moving forward with a new high court this year, Graham cited the bitter 2018 fight over Brett Kavanaugh’s high...
